Sports and the immune system

Acute exercise is followed by a mobilization of white blood cells, mainly induced by increased levels of catecholamines and cortisol. NK-cells react the most intensive, they can increase fivefold after intensive exercise. Additionally a weak acute-phase reaction occurs. Most of these changes normalize during twenty-four hours. Parameters of the humoral immune system may be different from the pre-exercise levels up to seventy-two hours. Repeated physical exercise, which is typical for sports, is followed only by small changes of immunologic parameters under conditions of rest. Epidemiological studies give clues that the rate of upper respiratory tract infections in athletes can be described by a j-shaped curve. Moderately active subjects have the lowest rate of infection. For this influence of exercise on health mainly functional changes seem to be important. Especially after excentric exercise immunological cells can be seen in the muscle tissue, which remove destructed tissue. Not very much is known about the role of the immune system in the regeneration of tendons and other bradytrophic tissues.